Fifty years of hyporheic zone research have shown the important role played by the hyporheic zone as an interface between groundwater and surface waters. However, it is only in the last two decades that what began as an empirical science has become a mechanistic science devoted to modeling studies of the complex fluid dynamical and biogeochemical mechanisms occurring in the hyporheic zone. These efforts have led to the picture of surface-subsurface water interactions as regulators of the form and function of fluvial ecosystems. Rather than being isolated systems, surface water bodies continuously interact with the subsurface. Exploration of hyporheic zone processes has led to a new appreciation of their wide reaching consequences for water quality and stream ecology. Modern research aims toward a unified approach, in which processes occurring in the hyporheic zone are key elements for the appreciation, management, and restoration of the whole river environment. In this unifying context, this review summarizes results from modeling studies and field observations about flow and transport processes in the hyporheic zone and describes the theories proposed in hydrology and fluid dynamics developed to quantitatively model and predict the hyporheic transport of water, heat, and dissolved and suspended compounds from sediment grain scale up to the watershed scale. The implications of these processes for stream biogeochemistry and ecology are also discussed.

[1] The contamination of riverbeds by solutes derived from the surface flow has recently received increasing attention. Channel morphological features such as bed forms are important characteristics of the stream-subsurface interface and represent one control on the rate of solute delivery from the stream to the bed. Generally, larger bed forms are expected to produce greater rates of stream-subsurface exchange. However, the longitudinal dimension (wavelength) of the bed form is also important, and this effect can produce penetration patterns that may be unexpected from a visual observation of the bed surface. Experimental tests in a recirculating flume demonstrate these effects. Commonly used mathematical models do not consider the bed form geometry explicitly and depend on the availability of calibration data to derive exchange parameters for each stream reach. More detailed models that consider the effect of bed form shape are capable of simulating some of the observed experimental results. However, existing physically based models are shown to be insufficient for some bed form geometries that may occur in real streams.INDEX TERM: 1871 Hydrology: Surface water quality; KEYWORDS: solute transport, hyporheic, river contamination Citation: Marion, A., M. Bellinello, I. Guymer, and A. Packman, Effect of bed form geometry on the penetration of nonreactive solutes into a streambed, Water Resour.

[1] In evaluating the resistance of sediment particles to entrainment by the action of the flow in a river, the grain geometry is usually characterized using representative sizes. This approach has been dictated, initially by lack of physical insight, but more recently by the lack of analytical tools able to describe the 3-D nature of surface grain organization on water-worked sediment beds. Laboratory experiments are presented where mixed grain size beds were mobilized under a range of hydraulic and sediment input conditions. Detailed bed topography was measured at various stages. Statistical tools have been adopted which describe the degree of surface organization on water-worked sediment bed surfaces. The degree of particle organization and the bed stability can be evaluated in relative terms using the properties of the probability density distribution of the bed surface elevations and in absolute terms using a properly defined 2-D structure function. The methods described can be applied directly to natural water-worked surfaces given the availability of appropriate bed surface elevation data sets.

[1] Solute transport in rivers is controlled by surface hydrodynamics and by mass exchanges between the surface stream and distinct retention zones. This paper presents a residence time model for stream transport of solutes, Solute Transport in Rivers (STIR), that accounts for the effect of the stream-subsurface interactions on river mixing. A stochastic approach is used to derive a relation between the in-stream solute concentration and the residence time distributions (RTDs) in different retention domains. Particular forms of the RTD are suggested for the temporary storage within surface dead zones and for bed form-induced hyporheic exchange. This approach is advantageous for at least two reasons. The first advantage is that exchange parameters can generally be expressed as functions of physical quantities that can be reasonably estimated or directly measured. This gives the model predictive capabilities, and the results can be generalized to conditions different from those directly observed in field experiments. The second reason is that individual exchange processes are represented separately by appropriate residence time distributions, making the model flexible and modular, capable of incorporating the effects of a variety of exchange processes and chemical reactions in a detailed way. The capability of the model is illustrated with an example and with an application to a field case. Analogies and differences with other established models are also discussed.

[1] Scour holes below 73 grade-control structures (check dams and bed sills) in six mountain rivers located in the eastern Italian Alps have been surveyed. The most likely formative water discharge is used to evaluate jet thickness at each structure, which along with drop height, appears to determine scour hole dimensions, as shown by the consistent trends observed for nondimensional plots of both maximum scour depth and length versus the respective drop ratio. Sediment differences regarding size and lithology apparently play a minor role in determining scour hole dimension. Measured maximum scour depths are well predicted by a semiempirical equation developed through laboratory results, showing an average relative error of 0.13. Scour hole geometry is described by several ratios that are thought to represent approximately invariant characteristics. A new energy-based normalization for scour hole dimensions is proposed as the most suited to evaluate the role of jet geometry and aeration upon scouring efficiency. It is noteworthy that the ratio between the maximum scour depth and the total energy available at a drop tends toward an asymptotic value around unity for increasing drop heights.

[1] This study analyzes the effect of advective pumping and pore scale dispersion on bed form-induced hyporheic exchange. Advection and dispersion play a competitive role in the exchange dynamics between the porous medium and the overlying stream: Advective fluxes first lead solutes deep into the bed and then back to the stream water, whereas dispersive fluxes favor the transfer of solutes deep into the bed leading to a permanent mass retention. The combined effect of advective exchange and dispersive fluxes produces complexity in the shape of the tails of the residence time distributions (RTDs), which follow at various stages of the process either a power law or an exponential decay. The seepage velocity induced by the stream gradient and, in case of a moving bed, the celerity of the translating bed forms limit the thickness of the advective hyporheic zone, inducing the RTDs to decrease rapidly at late time. This rapid decay can be preceded by a temporal region where the probability density functions (pdf's) tend to be inversely proportional to the square of time, and is followed by a region dominated by dispersion where the pdf's tend to be inversely proportional to the 3/2 power of time. The process shows distinct temporal ranges identified here by appropriate dimensionless parameters. Because of this complex exchange dynamics, models considering pure advection in the porous medium can significantly underestimate solute transfer at long time scales, whereas purely diffusive models of hyporheic exchange appear inadequate to represent the physical processes at an intermediate stage.Citation: Bottacin-Busolin, A., and A. Marion (2010), Combined role of advective pumping and mechanical dispersion on time scales of bed form-induced hyporheic exchange, Water Resour. Res., 46, W08518,

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